A Circuit Court judge in Wayne County, Michigan has sided with the website PubPeer. This is to allow the website to keep its participants’ identities secret. A Wayne State University pathologist had sued the site, requesting to expose the names of people who had criticized his work on PubPeer.
PubPeer is a website that allows users to discuss and review scientific research. The website enables academics, and interested citizens, to engage in post-publication peer review. This essentially means offering insightful comments or hard hitting criticism of published science papers. According to the website Retraction Watch, such websites have successfully highlighted shortcomings in high-profile research papers. In some cases this has lead to retractions and even to accusations of scientific fraud.
With the recent case, attorney Alexander Abdo of the American Civil Liberties Union who represented PubPeer, told Retraction Watch: “We’re very pleased that the Court recognized the importance of free speech and anonymity to PubPeer and its mission. We look forward to continuing to fight for the right of PubPeer’s users to lawfully and anonymously discuss the scientific research of their peers.”
The recent legal action was brought by Fazlul Sarkar. Dr Sarkar wanted to sue commentators on the PubPeer website who accused him of scientific misconduct and which, according to The Scientist, cost him a job at the University of Mississippi.
Sarkar’s lawsuit stated: “These Defendant(s) have but one aim: to bring down and destroy the career of Plaintiff by any means necessary, while hiding in the shadows of anonymity so that they themselves suffer no consequences. They deserve no protection of their identity from this court.”
The judge, however, did not agree. Sarkar seems set to appeal. For the time being, the right to be anonymous and to comment on published scientific research remains.
